In the Garden of BeastsisEric Larson’s 2011 book about U.S. Ambassador William Dodd and his family’s time in Germany from 1933 to 1937. The Garden of Beasts is a loose translation of the Tiergarden,
Berlin’s version of Central Park, around which much of the political and
diplomatic action of Larson’s book takes place – and is, of course, a metaphor
for the general state of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.

U.S.
Ambassador William Dodd and his family

arriving in Hamburg in July 1933

When the Dodds arrived in Germany, storm troopers were beating
American tourists on the streets and Jews were increasingly the target of
brutal violence and tightening social restrictions. Dodd arrived in Berlin holding the
Antisemitic notions typical of America at the time—expressed rather simply by
his daughter, Martha (who
unbeknownst to her father was a Soviet spy), “We sort of don’t like the Jews
anyway.” But first-hand experience of
the Nazis convinced Dodd they were an increasing threat, and he resigned in
protest over his inability to mobilize the Roosevelt administration,
particularly the State Department, to counter the Nazis prior to World War II.

But how did others in Germany and abroad respond
to the Garden of the Beasts? They took one
of the 4 roads: appeasement,
collaboration, resistance and dissent.
This lecture will take a short drive down each of those roads.

Topics and Some Related Reading

Fascism
101:We will take a very brief look at Fascism and the
social, economic and political conditions in Germany at the time of Hitler’s
rise to power.

Appeasement:In an international context, appeasement is
the diplomatic policy of making concessions to an aggressive power in order to
avoid conflict – and is most often applied to the foreign policy of the British
governments of Prime Ministers Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville
Chamberlain towards Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. But others – including the leaders of the
Weimar Republic and political leaders in the USA—chose the path of appeasement in dealing with Hitler.

Collaboration:Collaboration is defined as cooperation
between elements of the population of a defeated state and representatives of
the victorious power. Within nations
occupied by the Axis Powers in World War II, some citizens and organizations
knowingly collaborated with the Axis Powers.

Resistance:Resistance movements were rare in Germany, but during World War II
occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means ranging from
non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda to hiding crashed pilots and
hiding Jews and to outright warfare and the recapturing to towns. In many countries, resistance movements were
referred to as The Underground.

Dissent:Although it usually resulted in imprisonment
or death, publicly expressing non-agreement or opposition to the philosophy and
actions of the Nazi regime did occur—particularly
among dissenting religious leaders like pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer
and Cardinal Clemens August Graf von Galen.

I have a 40-year track record that includes organization and strategic consulting with non-profits, both big and small, as well as small family-owned business and Fortune 500 global technology companies. My experience also includes work in education, counseling psychology and crisis management, program and operations management, nonprofit management and consulting, and human resources and education.

Although I currently work primarily as an organization development consultant, one of the things that energizes me is learning new things and sharing what I learn - and not just career-related things about organizational change and development. I create exciting and enriching educational opportunities for adults that incorporate psychology, philosophy, history, historical anthropology and more—with a perspective that “everything’s related.” My broad background in psychology, philosophy and theology along with my deep interest in history, sociology, politics and organizational systems have given me the perspective that nothing ever really happens in isolation. Ideas, decisions, actions and events all occur in a web of other interrelated ideas, decisions, actions and events. I enjoy pulling connecting threads to see where they lead – and if you don’t come away from my classes and lectures asking more questions than you started with, I haven’t done my job!